In Puerto Rico, Equal Parts Fear and Fellowship After Storm

Neighbors gathered to clean out their homes damaged by Hurricane Maria in Canovanas, P.R., on Saturday.CreditVictor J. Blue for The New York Times

TOA BAJA, P.R. — The little cluster of friends and neighbors had gathered in front of a concrete home in a flooded-out seaside neighborhood at sunset. They were relieved to be alive after Hurricane Maria, proud of the way they had helped each other, and anxious about whether the relative peace in battered Puerto Rico would hold.

Wilmer Rivera Negron, 34, showed the generator that he was sharing with an older couple, 75 feet away. The couple’s daughter, Luz Collazo Pagan, 55, pointed to a huge pile of felled branches the neighbors had cut with machetes and moved off the street.

Ms. Collazo, a lawyer, also showed the binders full of documents she was referring to as she tried to help her friends without firearms figure out how to buy them legally.

“Basically, we’re drinking wine and talking about how we can best arm ourselves and protect our families,” said Jose Camacho Santiago, 36, a paramedic.

Even before Hurricane Maria, Puerto Ricans had been confronting a kind of disaster narrative as its government, some $74 billion in debt, declared a form of bankruptcy in May.

But the response to the storm has reminded them of the strength of their culture, and its grace notes of solidarity, neighborliness and pride. The stories of residents cleaning up their streets, and sharing electricity, medicine and food, are legion. While there has been some looting, particularly after the storm, officials insist that burglary statistics have not increased.

“I am very proud of the citizens of this island,” said Hector Pesquera, Puerto Rico’s secretary of public safety. “There’s always that minor segment of society that has that criminal inclination, hurricane or no hurricane, that’s always there. During a time of crisis, like happened in 9/11 in New York and other places, we’re all coming together, and that’s something.”

At the same time, many here are wondering just how much stress the island can take, given the social problems it was saddled with before the storm, including a 45 percent poverty rate, 10 percent unemployment and the second worst murder rate in the nation in 2016, behind Washington, D.C.

Diana Lopez Sotomayor, a professor of archaeology and anthropology at the University of Puerto Rico’s Rio Piedras Campus, is among those who fear that the social fabric may begin to fray if residents are forced to deal with months without reliable employment, food and energy.

One Day in the Life of Battered Puerto Rico

A team of New York Times reporters and photographers spent 24 hours with people trying to survive the catastrophe that Hurricane Maria left behind in Puerto Rico.

“There is a new feeling in Puerto Rico, a new ‘nosotros’,” she said, referring to a new sense of we. “More people in the street are saying, ‘Buenos Dias, Como estas?’ You’re in a queue for hours, and of course you become friends. In the same lines are rich and poor. It’s breaking the barriers of class.”

However, she added, “When people are starving they will get violent. If things don’t get better the new ‘nosotros’ is going to break down.”

Statistics released by the Puerto Rico Police Department this week showed that 18 homicides occurred in Puerto Rico the first 10 days after the storm, which hit Sept. 20, the same number in the period a year ago.

There have been rumors of looting, sometimes supported by fact. Mr. Peéésquera said that about eight people were arrested in the first days after the hurricane for violating curfew in ways that were obviously intended for criminal activity.

In the badly damaged northern coastal city of Arecibo, workers at the Pueblo supermarket said that people made off with liquor and cigarettes.

In the southern city of Ponce, Mary Lugo, 37, said that a neighbor in her neighborhood of Punta Diamante, had her refrigerator taken after she had cleaned it and put it on the balcony to dry.

Fausset, R. (2017, October 02). In Puerto Rico, Equal Parts Fear and Fellowship After Storm. Retrieved October 02, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/us/puerto-rico-hurricane-crime.html

The audience: The audience that is most likely to see this article are Puerto Rico’s citizen and everyone that supports them, they will have a more supportive opinion and agree with the author on the fact that they are being very independent from their government and they have been working very hard to survive this disaster. The audience will feel empathy for this people.

The publisher’s point of view: The publisher’s point of view is from the American side, because the source is American “The New York Times”, also Puerto Rico is part of the USA, so it’s informing americans about this catastrophe.

The author’s point of view: In this article we can see that the author feels proud and kind of admires the solidarity, empathy and generosity of this people. The author makes a lot of emphasis on how the people have been helping each other even if the government doesn’t they will work together in order to protect the citizens of Puerto Rico.

The article is directed or targeted: mostly people who live in Puerto Rico and also to the ones who may want to do something to help the ones affected by wanting to get informed, due to this situation that turned up after this natural disaster.

the objective: The objective of the article is to inform about how citizens

from Puerto Rico deal day by day with the struggles that the natural disaster left and how they support each other on this tragic event.

opinion:  first of all we think this hurricane was horrible, caused a lot of damages  and will forever change lives. We stand with Puerto Rico and hope they can recover soon it’s not their fault that all of this things happen but nature is uncontrollable. In our opinion, it’s impressive how the people stand up for each other in this moments of tragedy, how even though many of them were left with anything they help, they helped each other. When things like this happen the country changes for good. For us it’s also sad that people take advantage of this situations and don’t care for the others, how can they be that selfish, they are not the only ones suffering.